Falling to Darkness
by MoonlitxAngel
Summary: -New Version- How could this have happened? They were gone. Dead, but he wasn't sure why it was so upsetting... He worked against them and yet there was this unknown pain in his chest, like something inside him was breaking... That's when he remembered the beginning. (Rated T for violence)
1. Prologue

_**Prologue**_

His rain soaked clothes hung tightly to his skin as he stood before the four glossy, gray tombstones that stood in front of him as he mourned at the graveyard. Time didn't matter to the young man as he stood there and looked at the four. Time had no meaning any longer for him and it hadn't for a long time…. The ones who laid beneath his feet had died before their time. Each of them only just being able to make something of themselves in school and nearing the end, but that was taken from them…. They'd all been killed within a few months of each other with the last one dying only a month before. A funeral still to be held, but postponed for some reason….

First to go had been Yumi Ishiyama, the silent observer…. Next had been Jeremie Belpois, the group's computer wizard and pillar of strength and support…. The winged princess, Aelita Stones, had been third to die…. Last of the four was Odd Della Robbia, the group's light-hearted goofball who seemed to know everyone….

Each of their deaths sat at the front of his mind, taunting him. They replayed over and over just to see how quickly they'd cause him to slip into madness. They tormented him day and night, forcing him to watch those people die…. With his own hands he'd killed each and every one of the four…. They were people he could vaguely remember knowing, but didn't know if that was the guilt talking….

Everyone around wanted to comfort him, but he blew them off. He didn't need to be comforted…. He didn't deserve their kind words of condolences for the loss of them. He was the reason they were gone…. If it weren't for him, they'd still be here.

When Aelita had died, so had any hope he had of remembering why those four were so important to him…. The boy named Odd had almost got him to remember…. It had been on the brink of coming back to him, but then the blond had met his end, just like the others…. His master had ordered him to kill these people…. They were in the way of his bringing about peace. He'd shown them injuring innocent creatures and other things that made his blood boil. Deep down in the depths of his mind he knew that something was amiss about the whole situation. They'd treated him as an equal and as a friend at times. As if his existence meant something to them….

He sighed, holding his head. Every time that he began to think too deeply like that his head began to ache and he couldn't focus on any one thing for a few minutes. He'd lost his train of thought…. It had been happening every since he killed Odd Della Robbia.

Suddenly he fell to his knees and cried. His torso fell forward seconds later and he caught himself on his hands. As thunder echoed and lightning struck the ground he let out a strangled cry. They were kind to him. They'd told him they thought of him as a friend and that he needed to come back to them and yet he MURDERED them! People he didn't even know himself…. People that seemed important….

**You have done what had to be done, young warrior…. You must learn that the end always justifies the means…. You have helped save this world…. **His master's voice whispered to him from the deepest recesses of his mind. He held his head as the tears continued to flow as he remembered something he nearly forgot….

_**"Is this what you've been planning all along? Is this how you're going to play? What's the point in killing them?" an ebony haired boy yelled, glaring at him as the boy held Yumi Ishiyama's body close.**_

_** "War is war, boy. People die for the ones they love in war. She loved my warrior, but he's working with me…. She chose to die and give him a chance to be freed rather than to save herself. Do you not understand that? Can you not comprehend that she would sacrifice herself for him? Whether it was all in vain didn't matter to her. I now understand humanly compassion and love, though I'll never feel it for myself," his master spoke, using his mouth to communicate with the other boy.**_

_** "Xana, you're a monster that should have never been created. One way or another I'm going to bring you down and avenge our friends. I'll save him, too…."**_

_** His master laughed and said, "You think that the three of you can take me and my warrior down?"**_

_** "We've done it before and we'll do it again. I won't let another one of them die."**_

__That boy lied that day. They did all die until only he was left standing. He didn't know what had become of that boy, but it seemed irrelevant. He wasn't going to just pop up again out of nowhere….

Looking up he saw that the headstone was Aelita's. It pained him to think back on her funeral…. There were so few people there, most of them being classmates and friends, and he heard one of the people saying that her parents had died before her. She died before her time with barely any family at all…. At least, that's what they said. Parents and family were new terms to him. He was curious what they meant, but he wasn't going to go searching. He might get in trouble with his master.

Yumi's was the next one to catch his eye. Fresh tears started to flow as he remembered what she told him…. It wasn't fair that she had to go…. Killing her was one of the hardest things he had had to do through this whole mess…. It was hard in every way, shape, and form…. He didn't know if he would have been able to live through the heartache, but his master reminded him he needed to press on….

There was so much pent up pain inside him he just wanted to scream or kill himself to get rid of it. It wouldn't go away. He wanted to remember everything terribly. He didn't care if his past before joining Xana was bad. He didn't care if it would harm him to know or if it would make him upset. He wanted to remember everything. He'd never get the chance to remember why they all treated him kindly. He'd never get the chance to remember why they called him a friend. He'd never get the chance to talk to one of them, even for a little while, to apologize. To say he was sorry that they were on opposite sides and he had to kill them…. To tell them how much it pained him daily…. Why couldn't they have just surrendered….?  
"Long time no see, buddy…."

_**A/N: there are some parts that I changed and some parts stayed relatively the same. A lot of this is showing that over time his memory was basically completely wiped. He only knew how to fight. He didn't need terms that Xana deemed useless like the word "family" or "parents". Ulrich didn't need those to fight so they were trashed. That's all I can really explain for now, but this isn't the end of this scene. We'll be seeing an extended version (with bits cut out so that it's not as long and you're not re-reading the same crap again) a bit later in the story. =3 Also, this takes place around the time of Nobody in Particular, so they can virtualize straight to Carthage. =3**_

_** So, new version or old version of this chapter? XD**_

_** Also, for a little bit until I get some sort of routine done I'll be updating weirdly.**_

_**~MoonlitxAngel**_


	2. Slipping

_**Slipping**_

"C'mon Ulrich, hurry up!" Odd shouted at his best friend as they rode through the sewers to the old abandoned factory.

"I'm going as fast as I can, Odd!" Ulrich shouted back with a frown. There was something wrong with his skateboard, that or he was losing his touch.

"Well it's not fast enough! I won!" Odd shouted as he reached the ladder.

Ulrich sighed and when he got there Odd was already waiting at the top for him. Today wasn't his day. First, embarrassing photos of him got to Milly and Tamiya and so everyone was laughing at him all day. Odd swore up and down he didn't do it, but laughed with the rest of them. Then, he got chewed out by Mrs. Hertz for the second or third time that week. Not to mention after that he slipped in the cafeteria and his food landed all over him, so he missed lunch. If only to taunt him more Kiwi decided today was a good day to think of Ulrich as a fire hydrant.

Ulrich knew that Odd was just teasing him, but it didn't mean that it didn't bother him. Listening to Odd talk about how he should wear red from now on and just stand in front of their door didn't help make his day better either.

"Alright everyone, we need to get some information from Carthage. I want Ulrich and Aelita to go first and I'll keep Odd here as back up while we wait for Yumi. I don't expect Xana to just sit back and watch us while we get the information either, so be on high alert," Jeremie said, turning back to the computer.

All three nodded and went to their respectively locations.

(*)(*)(*)(*) Later in Jeremie's dorm (*)(*)(*)(*)

"Ulrich, you're sure you're alright?" Jeremie asked for what seemed to be the hundredth time that day.

"I'm fine, Jer. Nothing happened," he replied, same as the last times.

"I'm making sure. You never know what can happen when the materialization program bugs up like that."

Ulrich nodded and looked at the ceiling again. He had nothing better to do, so he ended up hanging out in Jeremie's room to try and get some homework done, though that was the least of his worries. _Why am I screwing up so bad lately? I couldn't protect Aelita from those monsters, I can't win a race against Odd, and everything else just seems to be slipping as well. Something's not right…._

_**"Your friends are leaving you in the dust…."**_  
Ulrich looked around quickly, trying to find the source of the voice. He didn't see anything and Jeremie didn't seem to notice it at all.

_**"You're not getting stronger or smarter and so they're leaving you behind."**_

"Jeremie, did you hear anything?" Ulrich asked, not even bothering to look around this time.

"Other than the sound of your foot tapping against the floor? No. Aren't you supposed to be working on your homework, Ulrich?" Jeremie asked, turning around and giving him a quizzical look before returning to his work.

Ulrich let out another sigh and closed his book. "Nope, I get done."

"Ulrich, if you don't step up then you're gonna end up being left behind," Jeremie told him as he left the room.

_**"He's right…. They're just going to leave you behind and then you'll be alone."  
**_Ulrich shook his head and went back to his and Odd's dorm. Surprisingly enough Odd wasn't there. Normally at this time of night Odd was in their dorm listening to music.

He laid down on his bed and commenced staring at the ceiling again. It helped him think. _What if I am just nothing? What if I have just reached my limit?_

-  
_ He stood in front of a tower, seemingly waiting for something or someone to come out._

_ "Ulrich, what do you think you're doing? … You've done it now! Aelita's been devirtualized!" Jeremie's voice rang out._

_ Almost instantaneously he was back in the scanner room._

_ "Way to go, Ulrich," Odd said, sitting inside a scanner looking thoroughly beat up._

_ "What did you think you were doing, standing there staring at the tower?" Yumi snapped, glaring daggers at him._

_ "This has been happening too much lately, Ulrich. You're not getting things done, you're falling behind everyone, and you can barely protect Aelita," Jeremie said as he entered the room from the elevator._

_ Ulrich couldn't say anything, because he knew it was true. His friends were surpassing him…._

_ "Aelita would have been better off on her own out there," Yumi stated, arms crossed against her chest._

_ "Even Odd did better than you, and that's saying something," Jeremie stated, walking over to close the half-circle his friends were making. It felt like they were closing him in._

_ "Hey, even __I've__ never been that bad, Jeremie," Odd stated, looking over to the other blond and then over to Ulrich._

_ "You can't protect Aelita anymore…."  
"You're not getting any better…."_

_ "You're worse than Odd used to be…."_

_ Voiced jumbled in his head in a flurry of sound and images. Every failure that he'd ever made, every mistake he'd done, every accident that lead to something bad…. All of them were flashing before him._

_**"You're never going to be strong enough for them, Ulrich…."**_

Ulrich jolted awake. He looked over at the alarm clock and groaned. He'd fallen asleep, slept through dinner, through the night, and part way through first period.

"Great, just great," he mumbled, hurriedly getting dressed and racing to class.

(*)(*)(*)(*) Courtyard (*)(*)(*)(*)

Ulrich looked up through the tree leaves to the sky. He had a detention this afternoon for being tardy, Odd had laughed at him, and his friends seemed to be avoiding him. He'd finally given up and sat out here….

_**You can't find something that doesn't want to be found…. Or someone, in this case….  
**_He was starting to get accustomed to the voice in his head. Maybe it was words of wisdom he never knew he could think up. Truth of the matter was, though, that his friends were nowhere to be found, they weren't answering his texts or calls, and he was left sitting alone underneath a tree while other students walked by and called him names. No one was going to let those forged photos die….

_**A/N: Not a lot to say. xD Next chapter will be mostly, if not all, in Ulrich's point of view. =3**_

_** Hopefully I can do better with updating…. -_-"""" Though that all depends on whether I can get Microsoft Word will work... -_-""" I only have two more chapters done other than this one. Wish me luck! =D**_

_**~MoonlitxAngel**_


	3. Tumbling

_**Tumbling**_

__Ulrich sat with his back to a tree watching the clouds roll by. There was nothing better to do. His friends were seemingly ignoring him and his grades continued to keep slipping down into the ground and into oblivion. Not good. Only ones that ever talked to him were Kiwi and Sissi. And Kiwi didn't count since Kiwi was a dog and couldn't talk back.

"Hey Ulrich!" Sissi called to him, waving her hand as she neared.

"I'm not in the mood to deal with you, Sissi," he said, his eyes not leaving the sky.

"I just came to tell you that Jeremie is looking for you. I don't know what he wanted, but he looked all worried about something," she told him with a 'hmph'.

Ulrich nodded and got up. Ulrich wasn't sure why Jeremie was looking for him. It's not like the four of them had taken much interest in him the past few days. When Ulrich opened the door to Jeremie's room all his friend's eyes were on him, as if expecting him to jump at them at any moment, but he didn't. He closed the door and leaned against the wall.

"Now that we're all here I wanted to say that scanners are bugged up. After the issue with materializing Ulrich I realized that there might be something wrong with the scanners, so I've been running checks and scans. Every person that went to Lyoko that day may have something wrong with them, so I need to run a scan on each of you. It won't take long or anything, I just need to make sure that everything is alright with all of you," Jeremie stated.

"Is that all? You could have texted that or called. You asked Sissi to get me here just to tell us that? I was actually starting to think that you were taking an interest in talking to me again since you've been basically ignoring me since Xana's last attack," Ulrich stated, letting off some of his pent up anger.

"Ulrich, we thought you just wanted some time to yourself. After everything that happened that day we wanted to give you a few days reprieve. You haven't been doing as well and everyone thought you could use a break. Also, those things work both ways. We didn't try to find you, but you didn't try to find us, either. Nor did you try to engage in conversation at lunch," Aelita told him gently.

_**She's always been the nice one. This is just her watered down way of saying 'we've forgotten all about you'.**_

__"Sure, blame me. I've always been the one out in the group anyway," he stated, leaving the room and going to his and Odd's dorm with Odd trailing close behind.

"You know that's not true, Ulrich. You're our friend and we'd never purposely leave you out…" Odd said, picking up Kiwi and sitting on his bed when Ulrich sat at the desk.

"Just leave me alone, okay?"

Odd sighed and complied, but seconds later his phone went off with Jeremie on the other end. "Slow down, Einstein. What happened? …. I'll see if I can get Ulrich to come along and we'll meet you at the Factory."

Ulrich turned around and gave Odd a questioning look.

"A specter just kidnapped Aelita. Burst in through the window and just took her, jumping back out and heading to the Factory. Are you coming?" Odd asked, setting Kiwi down and getting up to go.

He sighed and nodded, following Odd as quickly as he could manage out of the school and toward the factory.

Ulrich slammed his fist against the pavement of the road and watched as the specter took Aelita into the Factory. He'd failed to get her back, but luckily they'd had a plan. Since Ulrich and Yumi were the two strongest fighters they were stationed at the opening of the Factory and Yumi was a bit farther in, Jeremie had blocked out the bridge, so that if Ulrich lost then Yumi'd be back-up. He just hoped that Yumi didn't lose.

It wasn't but a few minutes later that Yumi and Aelita walked up to where Ulrich was resting.

"You lost against that thing?" Yumi asked, astonishment coating her voice.

"What do you mean? How'd you win so quickly?" Ulrich asked, staring at her in disbelief.

"It was easy to beat. I don't understand why I had to take it down. You beat me last time we fought."  
Ulrich got off the ground and swayed a little bit. This was ridiculous. How could he have lost if Yumi had won? It was strange to say the least.

"We should probably go tell Jeremie, so that we can go and deactivated whatever tower was activated," Aelita said, giving Ulrich an apologetic smile.

When they got down to the computer lab Jeremie showed them the screen. No activated tower.

"Seems that as soon as Yumi beat the specter the tower deactivated…" Aelita said, looking at the code on the screen.

_**They don't need you anymore, Ulrich….**_

Maybe the voice was right…. They didn't need his help anymore. He was more of a hindrance that anything else….

As they all left the Factory Ulrich began to think over everything. He wasn't a Lyoko Warrior anymore. He was a wannabe hero and that was all. His time in the limelight was up.

"Ulrich, I can't believe you got your butt whooped by that specter!" Odd teased, laughing and then smiling at Yumi.

"Yeah, yeah…" he grumbled, speeding up so as to get away from the others and hurry to the school. Before heading to the school, though, he took a detour and headed into the forest, his favorite place to think.

It was true. He was below average. He was nothing special. He couldn't beat a simple specter and he couldn't even beat Odd in a race. His grades were falling to below Odd level and his Lyoko performance was suffering. What's more even his friends were starting to abandon him. Maybe quitting the Lyoko Warriors was a good idea…. Maybe he was meant to do something else….

_**Join me and you can be great….**_

_** A/N: This is annoying. -_-"""" I'm documenting my stay here at my sister's for you. =3 I have to share a room with my mom and she went to bed a half hour ago, so I've been having to type slowly so that I don't keep her up/wake her up. Hopefully we find somewhere soon. D=**_

_** ~MoonlitxAngel**_


	4. Falling

_**Falling**_

Ulrich was conflicted. Stay here on Earth and see things get worse or go where the voice wanted him to go. He didn't want to go to the unknown, though. He didn't know what was in store if he did decide to do the latter. Honestly, there was no way to know what was in store for either option.

He was glad that Odd wasn't in the room for once. Okay, they were avoiding him, but he had the peace and quiet of not having Odd around.

It was then that a knock sounded on the door. It was only just loud enough that he was able to hear it and when he opened the door Odd stood there out of breath and motioned for Ulrich to follow him.

Ulrich did as Odd said, just to see if he'd find out why Odd and the others hadn't been talking to him at all.

It wasn't too much later that they arrived at the Factory, with Jeremie working frantically at the computer. "I've sent Aelita and Yumi over and things are alright, but be careful. Xana's done something to the scanner program and I don't know what kind of effect it will have on you guys. I'm at the ready in case you start feeling like something's wrong, so just let me know."

Ulrich was angry, but he bit that back. He knew he needed to help Aelita and the others because it wasn't just their lives at stake.

(*)(*)(*)(*) Lyoko (*)(*)(*)(*)

"The fighting isn't too far from your position you two. Just go in carefully and you might be able to sneak up behind them and get some monsters out before they notice you've arrived," Jeremie told the two as they appeared on Lyoko.

"Yeah, yeah, Einstein. I think me and Ulrich can handle a few monsters, right buddy?" Odd asked, looking over to see that Ulrich was already running ahead of him.

Anger boiled inside him. He'd never felt angry like this before. They ignore and neglect him and now they're pretending that nothing ever changed.

**Yes, let your anger consume you and fight. Use that anger to give yourself power.**

For once, he agreed with the voice whole heartedly. He ran faster and began killing monsters one-by-one.

(*)(*)(*)(*) Unknown (*)(*)(*)(*)

A ghostly looking figured grinned as it watched the battle of the Lyoko Warriors and Xana's monsters play out. Things were going just the way they needed to go for things to work in his favor. Now, to keep pushing the boy farther….

-Ulrich-

Once the monsters were gone he looked around and saw a new monster appear. This one had a wide open mouth that looked black, red eyes with a small Xana symbol in them, and four tentacle like arms.

"I'll handle it! You get Aelita to the tower!" Ulrich shouted to them as he ran at the monster.

"Be careful, Ulrich," Jeremie told him.

Ulrich rolled his eyes and approached the monster. Too late for him, though. Once Ulrich got close to the arms they wrapped themselves around the brunet and dragged him closer to it. Struggling did nothing as the monster forced him to look into its eyes….

_Rain fell around him and washed the blood from his clothing and skin. All around him people he knew and had talked to were lying dead near his feet. Ghostly pale, eyes wide open in terror…._

_ He closed his eyes and wished them away, hoping that this wasn't real…._

_**You should be proud that you've come this far….You are the best out of all of them and for that I commend you. You have served the Lyoko Warriors well, Ulrich.**_

___No…. This couldn't be happening…. Was that Jeremie's voice in his head just now…?_

_**Have you forgotten? We got rid of Xana, hoped to make the world a better place…. Yumi rebelled. She didn't want to mess with things more than was necessary. You eliminated her and we continued to get rid of the evil's of the world. Don't you see? The world is so much better off without those nasty people ruining it….**_

__Ulrich shot forward, disoriented. Looking around he realized that he was in his bed and Odd was lying asleep in the other bed.

**Helping them no longer benefits you, young samurai…. They will bring about the destruction of the Earth…. You will be at the head of this destruction…. You will slaughter people that stand in the way of Jeremie's regime…. You will be the figure-head of misery, pain, and suffering for people around the world as Jeremie's Lyoko Warriors eliminate any and all who stand in the way…. Join me, Samurai, and you will stop that from happening. You will change the future for the better…. The Lyoko Warriors are wrong, child. Jeremie wishes for power and control…. Those who stand in his way be damned. I want to stop his evil from spreading…. Help me, Samurai, and you will be a hero….**

Ulrich didn't know about any of this…. His friends wouldn't do something like that, would they?

**They can and will. Have you not noticed how they've avoided you and treated you as if you didn't exist? Jeremie thinks you know. He has that much control over the others. He lies and schemes to get them against you and then he plans for you to come crawling back to him. That's just the way Jeremie Belpois works…. He sits and waits for you to crawl back, knowing that you will.**

_I'm the only one that can stop Jeremie…. _Ulrich thought, getting up from his bed as silently as possible and moving toward the door. If he woke up Odd he was done for. Odd would ask all these questions about what happened and if he was okay and then he'd alert the others….

**No one can know….**

__Ulrich agreed and went on his way. Sneaking out of his and Odd's dorm had been the hard part. Sneaking around the school and out to the Factory was easy. He didn't need to worry about waking anyone up or falling down, because it didn't matter. What mattered was stopping Jeremie before it became too late. It came down to the fact that none of his friends had been there for him and had teased and poked fun at him for no reason. He was having a few bad days and they were leaving him so that Jeremie could have more control.

When he got into the Factory he set a timed virtualization and sent himself off to Carthage. Xana had a Scyphazoa ready and waiting for him. Staying confident was the key. He wasn't going to back down no matter what anything said. His mind was pulling him in two directions. One lead to the Scyphazoa and the other lead as far as possible from the creature, but he stepped closer and closer to the monster. He would help Xana in any possible way so that he wouldn't end up destroying the world….

-Jeremie-

He bolted up in bed and quickly placed his glasses on his face, twisting around to look at his computer screen and the blond genius couldn't believe his eyes. Red text sat on his screen. It read: The game has only just begun…. And you, young genius, haven't even realized the fall has already begun….

_**A/N: Deal. I decided to make Xana be ominous. XD Honestly, I have no idea how long this story is gonna be. XD I do want to show more deterioration on Ulrich's part, but I don't see this story being very long, though I've surprised myself before. xD**_

_** Also, like I've stated before, MS Word doesn't work on my laptop so I'm going to try and use our desktop to write, though I can't promise good results it will be better than nothing and I will be trying to stick to my updating everyday, though it may be later than normal. I'm hoping to write daily to every other day. =3**_

_** Read and review!**_

_**~MoonlitxAngel**_


	5. Saving

_**Saving**_

Jeremie stared at the screen for a few more seconds before sending out the Xana alert and rushing to the Factory. Something big was happening and he needed to get there now.

-Odd-

He woke with a start and glared over at his phone before quickly checking it. He threw himself out of bed and quickly slipped into clothes so he could get going. He walked over to Ulrich's bed and quickly realized that the brunet wasn't there.

Grabbing his cell phone he walked out the door and started to quietly and quickly run down the hall. Once outside and out of the school grounds he called Jeremie.

"Odd, now isn't the time," he answered with a grumble.

"Yeah, actually it is. Ulrich isn't in bed. His phone and shoes are gone, so it wasn't just a trip to the bathroom," Odd answered, just as irritated as the blond sounded.

"I'm halfway to the Factory now, so hurry and get here."

Jeremie hung up before Odd could say another word and he quickly scrambled down the ladder.

It wasn't long before the four friends were all in the Factory and the three headed to Lyoko.

Jeremie repeatedly chastised himself. He should have seen this coming. Ulrich had been getting farther and farther away from the group and the other day there was clearly something wrong with him. All the signs were there, he just didn't want to admit it. None of them had wanted to admit it, but it was there.

"Alright Einstein, what're we up against?" Odd's voice came through his headphones as Jeremie snapped out of his thoughts.

"It's the Scyphazoa, Odd. Xana's trying to take control of Ulrich or something as far as I can tell from the message that I got on my computer. We need to stop him," Jeremie told them.

-Yumi-

She looked at Odd worriedly. She really hoped that they could save him….

As they got closer she realized that they were too late…. The Scyphazoa was resting Ulrich down on the ground as they neared.

"Stay back you guys. Don't let him see you. I'm going to be bringing you back and we'll see if Aelita and I can figure something out to get him back quickly," Jeremie told them as they all watched Ulrich carefully get up and look around.

-Ulrich-

He still felt like himself, but something was different.

**You now have powers as if you were under my control. I have also erased some… unneeded memories. Come to the heart of Lyoko and I will teach you some things you're going to need to know….**

Ulrich did as he was told, following the paths created for him to reach the core without needing a vehicle.

In front of him was a wisp of data. That's all he could think to call it, anyway. It looked like black and red smoke, just sitting there waiting….

**This is what I have been reduced to, Samurai…. A wisp of data. Franz Hopper is still around and now I have nearly not enough power to stop your friends from their psychotic plan. I need them out of my way. I need them to be eliminated….**

"Can't they just be convinced to help you like with me?" Ulrich asked, looking around at all the monsters that had gathered around the two.

**They are closed off to me. You are the only one that would be willing to listen and even if they would listen it wouldn't mean that it would actually happen. Sadly there is almost no possibility of saving them….**

Ulrich sighed and nodded. "So, what did you want to teach me?"

-Odd-

He cuddled Kiwi close to him and looked at Ulrich's empty bed. He'd never thought that it would come to something like this. Never once had it crossed his mind that Ulrich had been getting distant from them and now this is where they're stuck at.

Kiwi whined and looked at the closed door or the dorm and looked up at his master.

Odd petted him. "I'm sorry, buddy…. He's not coming back tonight…"

A knock came on the door and Odd quickly hid Kiwi before answering it.

"Odd, do you think that it's our fault that this happened?" Yumi asked, stepping into the dorm and sitting on Ulrich's bed.

"I was thinking about that just now, too. I didn't really noticed 'til now that things changed the past week or so…. Ulrich stopped hanging around us as much and we stopped hanging around him as well. He felt left out I guess and Xana probably used that to its advantage to get Ulrich to join it," Odd told her, looking as she messed with the sheets.

"I want him back, Odd…" Yumi whispered, looking at the ground.

It didn't happen a lot that Yumi broke down, but you knew it was bad when she did. There wasn't a lot that they could do and they all felt helpless….

"I know…. We all do. Kiwi even misses him. I just hope that Jeremie and Aelita can find some way to get him back. Do you think that Xana will let William go now that it has Ulrich?"

"I don't know and I really don't care if we get William back right now or not, Odd. I don't want William back. I want Ulrich back. It's not fair…."

Odd was at a loss of what to do. He wasn't good with the whole emotions thing. Aelita would be better suited for this, but she was busy. "Yumi, I don't know what else to say…. I want Ulrich back, too, but breaking down and crying and just hoping that he'll come back won't help…. Personally I think that we should go see if Aelita and Jeremie need any help with anything or if there's anything that we can do to make this go quicker…."

Yumi nodded and wiped the stray tears running down her cheeks from her face, leaving no sign except for slightly red eyes that she'd been crying. "Let's go…."

It didn't take long for the pair to reach the Factory with Jim not patrolling outside like he normally does.

"Hey you two, how's it going?" Odd asked as they entered.

"It's going to take some time, but I think that since it's been so recent that it happened that we'll be able to retrieve the data that Xana took from Ulrich and recreate and replace it. I'll need you guys to go in and fight him long enough to get enough hits on him to devirtualize him, but that should bring him back once I load the stuff up on the computer," Jeremie explained, eyes never leaving the computer screen.

"There's no guarantee that this is going to work, but we're going to try," Aelita promised, smiling at the two.

_**A/N: Thank goodness. I had to turn on the Subdigitals and some other music and just type and I finished it! =D I'm really hoping to start posting stuff every other day again, but we'll see. =3**_

_**Read and review! (Reviews are what are keeping me going right now.)**_

_**~MoonlitxAngel**_


	6. Changes

_**Changes**_

Aelita and Jeremie stayed up all night long working on the program to free Ulrich. They'd both decided that it was much easier to do since Ulrich had only just been possessed and they had some ideas as to how it had happen.

"Do you think it'll work?" Aelita asked as the two watched the screen as Jeremie ran a trial program.

"It had better work. We put a lot of work into this and we need to get Ulrich back as quickly as possible," Jeremie replied, keeping his eyes glued to the screen until the green plus sign came up.

Aelita let out a yell of triumph and then quickly covered her mouth. It was still early and she wasn't supposed to be in Jeremie's room.

"Alright, after breakfast we'll head down to the Factory. Getting Ulrich back is much more important than going to classes today," Jeremie told her as he copied the program to a DVD and placed it in a case and then into his laptop bag. He looked over at the clock.

"It's almost time for breakfast now, Jeremie," Aelita told him with a small yawn, going to sit on his bed.

"Yeah, so let's go get the Odd up and get breakfast. I'll call Yumi and let her know to meet us at the Factory instead of here."

Aelita nodded and silently left the room to go wake up Odd.

It wasn't much later that the three friends were headed to the cafeteria.

"So do you guys think that this will really work?" Odd asked, sitting down at their table.

"It should, Odd. We triple checked the program. Ulrich should be back with us before lunch if all goes well," Aelita told him, knowing the blond was just worried about food.

"I know what you're thinking and I'd fight all day long just to get Ulrich back, so don't give me that look Jeremie," Odd stated, pointing his messy fork at the genius.

They all hurriedly finished breakfast and headed to the Factory.

(*)(*)(*)(*) Lyoko (*)(*)(*)(*)

-Yumi-

"Ulrich is near the way tower. It seems he just got here," Jeremie told them as they were all virtualized.

"Alright Einstein, we're headed that way. Vehicles?" Odd asked, looking toward Yumi and Aelita with a smile.

"One step ahead of you," Jeremie replied as the Overboard and Overwing materialized in front of them.

They hopped on their respective vehicles, with Aelita choosing to go with Yumi, and made their way toward Ulrich.

"I think he knows you're coming. He's stopped moving and is just sitting there," Jeremie warned. "Be careful."

"Is everything ready for when we get there?" Aelita asked , watching ahead of them.

"Yeah, it should be as long as the program doesn't crash or anything, then you'll just have to hang on until I get it running again," Jeremie explained as they neared Ulrich.

"Odd, you go circle around the tower to get behind him. Aelita and I will distract him up front," Yumi stated.

Odd nodded and raced ahead, getting in position behind the tower.

"Alright, the program is running you guys, so go ahead and try to get him," Jeremie told them.

"We can do this, Yumi. It's to save him," Aelita told her as the pinkette felt Yumi tense up a bit.

"Thanks."

The two neared Ulrich and before they could even think about getting off the Overwing he slashed it causing it to disappear and the two on it to fall.

"My master wishes for me to give you my humblest greetings," Ulrich said, sword drawn in front of him.

"That's strange…" Yumi muttered to herself, but still loud enough for Aelita to hear and give a questioning look. "Normally people possessed by Xana have voices that sound all static-y. His doesn't."

"I have a few theories on that that I'll share when we're done," Jeremie told them.

Ulrich smiled. "It's nice to see you guys came. We've been planning for your arrival." With a snap of his fingers Odd came being dragged from behind the tower by the monster Ulrich had fought the day before.

"I like this monster. Updated version of the Kalamar from the Sea and this version is more fun, too," Ulrich stated, turning a little and looking at the monster.

It nodded its head and then forced Odd to look into its eyes.

Ulrich super sprinted toward Yumi and nearly caught her off guard, but she quickly guarded with her fans as Aelita sent an energy field toward the monster, which moved slightly to avoid it.

"It won't be that easy to defeat, Princess," Ulrich told her as he pushed Yumi away from him and charged for Aelita.

Yumi looked between Odd and Aelita. She knew Aelita could hold her own for a small bit of time while she freed Odd and she hoped she'd have enough time. When she got close enough she sent one of her fans at the monster, who lost one tentacle. She sent the other one toward Ulrich as he and Aelita were struggling for their footing. Aelita was blocking him decently.

As Yumi got another tentacle off her fan hit Ulrich and caused him to falter and gave Aelita enough time to push him back and hit him with an energy field.

The monster dropped Odd, who then was encased in a red field of energy.

-Ulrich-

He looked back as best as he could and saw that Yumi had freed Odd. It didn't matter. He'd been with the monster long enough that Odd would be devirtualized in mere seconds, but he knew at this point that he'd lost. He could feel memories rushing back and Xana's voice getting farther and farther away as his body continued to be covered in the pink energy of Aelita's attack.

Second later Odd was devirtualized and Ulrich was laying on the ground of Lyoko. The only thing he could compare this to was getting beaten by Yumi and then wanting nothing more than to take a hot shower to ease the pain of his aching muscles.

"Get him inside the Way Tower. I'm going to run a scan on him to make sure that Xana is completely gone from him," Jeremie told them as Odd joined him in the computer lab.

As Aelita and Yumi helped him up he began to feel dizzy. There was something wrong….

"We'll explain everything when we get back home, okay?" Yumi asked him, offering a small smile.

He tried his best to nod, but that made the dizziness worse.

=Odd=

He waited for Jeremie to finish with the scan asked, "So what's the verdict, Einstein."

"A few missing bits of data here and there, which explains why he apparently feels so weak, but luckily I was working on a recovery program. I just need to run it and he'll be fine to bring back here."

Odd smiled. It'd hadn't been too hard and they'd managed it.

It wasn't long before the three made their way up to the computer lab.

"We need to talk," Jeremie said, looking straight at Ulrich.

Odd could tell, this was long from being over….

_**A/N: I almost changed my mind and was about to make this take place in season four, but I decided not to, because as a writer I need to practice on fighting scenes and I'm not going to let Aelita just fly away from all her problems yet. xD**_

_** So, Ulrich's back to normal, but Odd thinks that this is far from over. What do you guys think?**_

_** Something else to note, I really think that I should try and use more Odd, because I don't use him a lot. It's mostly Yumi and Ulrich. Realistically Odd should be a secondary character in this, because he's extremely important to the storyline. William is, too. So expect to see William popping up soon. =3**_

_**Also, sorry for taking so long. I had some issues coming up with ideas to write about. ^-^**_

_** Read and review!**_

_**~MoonlitxAngel**_


	7. Yumi: Part 1

_**Yumi: Part 1**_

"We need to talk," Jeremie said, looking straight at Ulrich.

"What's there to talk about?" he asked, looking around the room. "What's going on?"

"You don't remember anything?" Aelita asked Ulrich, looking toward Jeremie.

"It's completely possible. Maybe Xana thought that it wouldn't win or something caused it to have control over Ulrich, so then with that gone it's taken out a chunk of his memory," Jeremie replied as Yumi glared at Ulrich.

"No, it's one of Xana's tricks. That was too easy and you know it, Jeremie. You and I both know it," Yumi interjected, going over and giving the genius a stern look.

"Would someone please tell me what's going on before I just go back to the dorms?" Ulrich asked, looking between his four friends.

"You know, call me when you guys realize that he's bad news, 'kay?" Yumi said before riding the elevator back to the surface.

Ulrich looked to Odd with a raised eyebrow and Odd shrugged.

"What's the last thing that you remember?" Jeremie asked, trying to get the conversation back on track.

"I remember the mission to Carthage to get information and then sitting in your dorm room afterwards. Everything after that is a blank," he answered. "What happened?" _**(From Slipping)**_

__"After that mission you began ignoring us and not talking to us when we'd talk to you unless it was something really important. You'd pretend we weren't really there or something. A bit after that Xana was able to contact me and told me that some game had just begun and we hadn't even realized it and then something came up about the Scyphazoa taking information from you. We raced to the Factory, but weren't able to get to you in enough time to save you," Jeremie replied before Aelita took over.

"We couldn't save you at that time, but when we got back to the dorms we went to work on the program that brought you back here. Jeremie and I worked all night. Yumi clearly still has some doubts," Aelita added looking to the others.

"But apparently my recovery program wasn't able to recover all of your previous memories while this all was going on," Jeremie noted.

Odd yawned and headed for the elevator. "We can talk about this stuff tomorrow you guys. We only just got Ulrich back. Let's not overwhelm him with questions piled upon questions."

Jeremie sighed and nodded. "It would probably be best. Aelita and I can look more into how what happened happened, so we can stop it from happening to anyone else.

Ulrich and Odd left Aelita and Jeremie in the computer room.

"So you really don't remember anything at all?" Odd asked as they headed toward their dorm room.

Ulrich shrugged. "It's all just a big blank spot in my memory…. I know that time passed, but I don't remember what happened in that time…. I just wish Yumi would believe me."

Odd patted Ulrich on the back. "Ulrich buddy, she'll get over it. She always does."

"Yeah, she'll learn that she's worrying over nothing," Ulrich agreed with a smile.

When both got back to their room they decided to just hang out until dinnertime.

(*)(*)(*)(*) That Evening (*)(*)(*)(*)

"So Einstein, what are we going to do about Yumi and what if Xana tries to get Ulrich again?" Odd asked, shoveling food in his mouth.

"We can't make Yumi believe him, but we can do something to make sure that it doesn't happen again. Aelita and I are working on it right now," Jeremie told him as he typed away on his computer.

"Jeremie, put the computer away," Aelita told him, reaching over and closing it. "We have time. We just won't send Ulrich to Lyoko until we can figure something out. Everyone needs a break Jeremie and we didn't sleep at all last night, so you're sleeping tonight."

"Hey, does anyone know where my phone is? I've been looking for it for the past few hours with Odd," Ulrich asked, looking around the table.

"I think it's down in the computer lab. I'll get it and bring it to you tomorrow when Jeremie inevitably drags me down there to work on that program," Aelita smiled.

Jeremie opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it and continued eating.

Ulrich passed his tray over to Odd and stood up. "I'm tired, so I'm going to go to bed."

Aelita watched as he left and then turned to Odd. "Watch him tonight, okay? I know we most likely got rid of all of Xana's influence, but I just want to be sure so that we can back him up with Yumi one hundred percent."

Odd nodded and ate Ulrich's food. "Yumi's just being stupid. Give it a week and she'll see she's just being paranoid.

"Yeah probably," Aelita agreed, smiling at him.

"I really don't doubt that it'll happen," Jeremie added.

Yumi sat in the bath looking up at the ceiling. Was Ulrich really back to normal? Did he really just forget? She didn't know and she didn't want to believe Ulrich until she was sure of it all.

Hiroki knocked on the door. "Yumi! Hurry up! Mom and Dad want to talk to us about something!"

Yumi sighed. _Here we go again…. Another apology and promise that they won't keep…._

Yumi pulled herself from the warm water and bubbles, putting her hair up in a towel and then drying herself off and wrapping another towel around her body. She went to her room and quickly pulled on some clothes, brushed her hair, and headed downstairs to sit at the table beside Hiroki.

"Yumi, Hiroki, we thought we should tell both you both the truth. We've been trying, we really have, but your father and I can't get along. We've decided to get a divorce. Your father's going to be staying with a friend of his and you guys will be allowed to go and visit him whenever you want, but for now you'll both be staying here with me," Akiko told the two.

"You can't!" Hiroki yelled, looking at both them waiting for them to say it was all a joke.

Yumi knew it wasn't going to be a joke and things weren't going to get better between the two, but she couldn't help but not want to believe it either.

When Ulrich woke up in the morning he noticed his phone sitting on his bedside table with a note attached.

_Ulrich,_

_ Here's your phone. You were asleep so I left it here and Jeremie told Delmas that you weren't feeling well, so you have the day off. He thought you needed a day off to get re-adjusted._

_ Aelita_

Ulrich smiled and picked up his phone, looking through it for missed calls.

_**You're mine again….**_

_** A/N: Well, I decided I was going to push myself to finish this one and I really did want to. =3 I see 3 chapters for Yumi's part. ^-^ I already have planned how she's going to die, but I have to lead up to it.**_

_** Sorry for lateness, by the way. We lost our internet and then my sister has been hogging the desktop. -_-"**_

_**~MoonlitxAngel**_


	8. Yumi: Part 2

_**Yumi: Part 2**_

Yumi frowned as she returned to school the next day. Nothing was going right. They'd lost Ulrich to Xana and none of the others actually understood that. They wanted to believe that Ulrich was back to his normal self, but she saw it. That small hint of Xana in his eyes while they were at the Factory. With her parents splitting as well, even though it was inevitable, it took a toll on her.

Instead of going into the school building she detoured into the woods and headed for the Factory.

After he'd eaten breakfast with Odd and the others he'd returned to his room. No way was he letting Xana control him again. He should have told Jeremie and Aelita he heard Xana. He didn't know why he didn't.

**You didn't, because you know that I can help you.**

"Shut up," he said, pulling a pillow over his head to block out the sunlight. He was hoping to get a few extra hours of sleep.

**You know that Jeremie is going to try and destroy the world. Ulrich, you're the only one that can stop him.**

"Shut up!" he yelled. He put the pillow on his lap and looked around for a portable CD player. Maybe he could drown out the voice.

**You won't be able to drown me out, Ulrich. I'm going to be here until you can't stand it anymore and you do help me. Yumi didn't believe you were back to normal when you were. She despises you. Do you want to know why? She sees Jeremie as a brother. She loves him and wants to help him just as she would with her real brother. You were trying to stop that and she still believes that you are. She wants to destroy you….**

"SHUT UP!" he yelled as loud as he could, holding his head. "Leave me alone!" He sat curled up on his bed for a few minutes, listening to the quietness of his own thoughts. Xana was gone for now.

He wanted to text Jeremie and Aelita and tell them, but there was something holding him back. He couldn't. He couldn't tell them. The best he could do was hint at what was going on. He needed to get something to stop this, before it got too far. Before he really hurt someone.

Jeremie sat typing in front of his computer later that evening, thinking back on what had happened during the day. Ulrich had been acting strangely, but could that be associated with his only just coming back from being under Xana's control or could Xana have somehow taken control of Ulrich again? He wasn't sure and he didn't want to voice his worries to Aelita, because he didn't want to needlessly worry her over something that might not even be happening. He decided right then and there that he was going to ask Ulrich about it at the closest opportunity.

"Jeremie, do you think that Xana will try to control someone else since we've freed Ulrich?" Aelita whispered, looking at the genius. It was clear to him that this had been deeply bothering her and she'd only just gotten the courage to speak out about it.

"I doubt it. Even if he were to do it we have the programs to free the person anyway, so he shouldn't even bother trying again."

"I know, but it still bothers me…. I feel like something's wrong, like something bad is going to happen soon."

Ulrich sat curled up on his bed, trying to shut out all the images appearing in his mind's eye. He didn't know whether or not to believe Xana or not, but eventually it would come to that. Xana had been talking to him almost non-stop for three hours.

_**You so readily believed me before, so why is it different now? What's changed between now and a few days ago when you decided to join me? Do you wish for Jeremie to use you to destroy the world? He'll use you and if you don't follow him he'll make you do his bidding. Punishing you by making you kill those closest to you. I would assume he'd start with your parents…. He may even be willing to give up Odd just to teach you a lesson.**_

__"No…" he whispered softly, covering his ears and letting tears fall down his face. He couldn't handle this much longer. He could already feel his resolve slipping from his grasp.

"Hey Ulrich, I brought you the work you missed!" Odd called through the door before opening it and seeing the brunet on the bed. He walked over quickly. "What's wrong? Is it Xana? Did Jeremie mess up his program?"

Ulrich couldn't trust his own voice, he knew it would shake. Something wouldn't allow him to answer Odd. It was like some force keeping the words from coming out of his mouth.

_**Open your eyes and you'll see a preview of what awaits if you stay allied with Jeremie Belpois too much longer….**_

__He didn't know why he listened to the voice, but he instantly regretted it. Odd was still sitting on the edge of the bed, worry etched onto his face, but he was covered in blood. His skin was pale, like he would die from blood loss at any second. When Odd reached a bloodied hand toward Ulrich he shrunk away and closed his eyes once more, hiding the gruesome image if only for a second before it was splayed across the backs of his eyelids. Odd, basically dead.

_**This will be your future. You'll be the one to cause him that pain. You'll be the one that causes his death and will have to live with that for the rest of your life. And, if you choose to stay with Jeremie, then you'll look back on this moment and wish you could reverse time so you could agree with me and save him.**_

__He squeezed his eyes shut tighter and wished that it would all end.

Odd looked down at his friend and placed a hand on his shoulder. Something was really bothering him, that much was clear. He'd kept silent and seemed to close up more when he'd mentioned it being Xana. "Ulrich, I'm going to let Jeremie know what's going on, okay? Don't be afraid. We'll fix this."

As he moved to get off the bed Ulrich grabbed onto his arm.

"Ulrich?"

"Don't Odd…. It'll be bad if you do…. Please…" he whispered, his grip getting a little tighter.

"If you're still hearing Xana then Jeremie needs to know so he can fix it, Ulrich. Do you want Xana to turn you against us?" Odd asked as gently as he could. This was one of those times when he was truly afraid for Ulrich.

"What if Xana's right, though, Odd…?" he asked, his voice just above a whisper. "What if we've been wrong the whole time…?"

"I think that's just Xana getting to you. Has it been bugging you all day?" Odd asked, looking toward the door.

Ulrich opened his mouth to answer and then closed it, his body curling more into a ball than before. "Leave me alone! … No! No, no, no!"

"Ulrich, what's-" Odd started, but was stopped when Ulrich pushed him across the room, his back slamming into the wall.

Kiwi started barking loudly and Ulrich turned toward the dog.

"Shut up!" Ulrich yelled, backing away from Odd and covering his ears.

Moments later Ulrich approached Kiwi and kicked the small dog under the desk and then pinned Odd against the wall. "Jeremie wants to kill people. Can you even begin to understand how much pain it would cause you if you'd been listening to things like that for three straight hours? I doubt it. You're not able to think seriously. And when I turn Ulrich into my slave, you'll be the last to die. You'll have to watch as he kills everyone else and then you'll be killed. Slowly, of course. And so will end the Lyoko Warriors. Don't worry, you have a small chance to fight back. Not much though," he said, his voice given the static-y quality of Xana's speaking.

Odd began to struggle. "Fight it, Ulrich! I know you can!"

Xana just laughed.

_**A/N: Finally getting back to writing this. X3 My step-mom is working on fixing my laptop so that MS Word works on it, but for right now I'll try to update every other day if I can. =3**_

_**~MoonlitxAngel**_


	9. Yumi: Part 3

_**Yumi: Part 3**_

__Odd continued struggling against Ulrich while the brunet just held him against the wall and laughed Xana's static laugh.

"Your friend can no longer hear you and once he can again he'll have lost the memories that contain his friendship with all of you in them. He'll be my warrior and one by one he'll kill all of you," the voice continued, electricity cackling at his fingertips.

Odd felt the jolts go through his body before he could do anything to stop them. The pain didn't last long before he passed out.

Odd sat up and looked around the room groggily. He didn't even remember coming in here, much less passing out on Ulrich's bed. After waking himself up a little bit more he looked at the time and realized one of two things. One, he'd been asleep since the day before and it was now five thirty in the morning. Two, that he had ten text messages from Jeremie, Aelita, and Yumi.

Sifting through the messages, all whose times ranged from seven to eleven last night, he realized that something bad had happened with Ulrich. It wasn't long before a new message popped up on his phone.

_From: Yumi_

_ To: Odd_

_ Odd, I can't believe you're doing it now, too. It was bad enough when Ulrich wasn't answering our messages, but now we've lost him and you can't even be bothered to pick up your damn phone!_

He typed a quick message back to Yumi, telling her to meet him in Jeremie's room in ten and then proceeded to quickly change clothes so that he was ready to go to class if he even went today.

It wasn't long before the four friends were sitting up in Jeremie's room, with Jeremie less likely to pay attention since he was sitting in front of his computer screen running various different programs and scenarios through his head.

"So what happened to you this afternoon, Odd? We texted you and you never responded," Aelita asked with a small yawn. She'd been sleeping on Jeremie's bed as the two geniuses had been up trying to find a way to find Ulrich's location.

"I don't know…. I remember leaving class, but nothing else until I woke up just recently. I do think that Ulrich left the room before I was even in there, though, because our room was way to untouched for someone to have been in there other than me," he explained, wracking his brain for the missing chunk of his memory.

"It's alright, Odd. It's just that Ulrich ran off into the forest and we searched the place up and down for him and then went to Lyoko and looked. He's nowhere to be found. Yumi automatically jumped to the conclusion that it was Xana, but Jeremie has a different theory," Aelita explained, shooting the blond a soft smile.

"We don't know what it was or why he ran off like that. All we know is that he's missing, Aelita. I didn't automatically jump to it being Xana," Yumi stated defensively, glaring at the pinkette.

"No fighting. We don't need even more separation in the group, Yumi. We need to stick together more than ever now. It's Saturday so we have half day of classes today. I'm going to skip and see if I can get the supercomputer to locate Ulrich's cell phone. For some reason my computer just isn't enough at the present moment. You guys are to meet me after classes let out at the Factory and I'll have hopefully figured something out by then," Jeremie said. He seemed to have realized the need for him to become a leader.

Odd nodded. He agreed about the arguing thing, but there was no way he was going to go to class. He wasn't going to let Ulrich suffer by himself. There was something going on, some reason that the brunet just left like that, and Odd was determined to find out why.

Odd ran into the forest, ditching Jim by ducking behind a bush. He sat there panting, watching for the older man to pop into the trees and search for him, but he let loose a sigh of relief when he didn't.

_Okay, if I was Ulrich where would I go?_ Odd asked himself while scanning the area around him for any signs of the brunet.

Eventually he decided to just start walking and, even though he didn't find Ulrich, it worked. "William!"

William laid in front of him on the ground, propped up on a rock and was bleeding a bit from his forearm. His hair looked like it had been dragged through mud and then caked with leaves. His eyes squinted open a little bit and he tried to speak.

Odd tentatively approached William and looked over his injuries and then called Jeremie.

"Odd, aren't you in class?" the other blond answered.

"No, I skipped. Is there an activated tower or anything?" he asked, turning his gaze away from William's bloodied and dirty body.

"No. Why?"

"I just found William barely conscious here in the forest. He looked pretty beat up and he's bleeding. What should I do?"

"I have some medical supplies here. Do you think you can get him to the Factory?"

"Yeah, he looks like he's waking up a bit more now, so he'll probably be able to walk and here in a minute answer my questions."

"Alright, just be careful Odd. Xana's been behaving differently for the past few weeks and who knows what it has up its sleeves."

"I'm always careful, Einstein. One question though. Do viruses even have sleeves?"

"Odd, this isn't a good time for stupid questions."

"There's no such thing as stupid questions, Jer. Anyway, see ya when I get there," Odd said and hung up before he got a response.

"Odd?" William asked as he tried to push himself to a standing position with his bad arm and fell back with a gasp.

"Careful there, William. Your arms hurt pretty bad. Jeremie wants me to take you to the Factory. Do you think if I help you up you could walk?" Odd asked, moving closer and crouching down.

"Yeah, but do you know how I got here?" he asked, looking around.

"No idea," Odd replied, helping William get an arm over his shoulders and then to a standing position. "Well, I do sort of, but Jeremie's better with the theories and such, so I'll leave that to him."

"Odd, what happened? The last thing I remember is being on Lyoko with you guys…."

"Jeremie will explain it all when we get there."

_**A/N: Not too much to say here, really. =3 I'm shocked that I'm going to have more than three parts for Yumi, though. ^-^ I'm glad for it though.**_

_** If you're reading this, please review. I need more motivation. =3**_

_**~MoonlitxAngel**_


	10. Yumi: Part 4

_**Yumi: Part 4**_

"So all that happened and I don't remember any of it?" William asked, looking between Odd and Jeremie.

Jeremie nodded and explained again, "Xana probably wanted you to think something different when you woke up, but since Odd found you we were lucky. Speaking of which, Odd why didn't you go to class?"

"I was worried about Ulrich. Who knows what's up with him. He could have ran off and gotten lost or something," Odd stated innocently.

"I doubt that, Odd, but good try," Jeremie said with a sigh, turning back to the computer. "I wanted you all at school so that it didn't look suspicious. Jim's probably already suspicious because Ulrich and I aren't in school. Now add on you and he's going to be screaming about conspiracy theories and such."

"Hey, you should be happy I was here or else we could potentially have a possessed William on our hands," Odd pouted.

"Jeremie, what are we supposed to do now? I mean, we all know that I'm going to have to go back to school. What lie did you make up to cover for me?" William asked, trying to change the subject.

"I made a polymorphic clone of you to replace you while you were gone. Though, he's an idiot, so people will probably look at you differently," he replied, not looking away from his computer screen.

"So I'll replace him soon, right?"

"Yeah, you'll just have to give me time to figure out how to switch you. Odd, you might as well go back to school. There's no way to track Ulrich that's going to be simple and I know you'll get bored."

"Yeah, yeah. I know you just mean that you think I'll get in the way. Which is pretty rude there, Jer. So I'll just go. Call or text if you need me," Odd said, taking the elevator before Jeremie could say anything else.

He felt pretty bad at that moment. He'd found William, but what about Ulrich? Where had the brunet gone? Clearly there was something going on, but unless Ulrich said something there was no way of knowing what it was.

Yumi tapped her pencil impatiently against her desk as she wondered about what was happening with her group of friends. Was this something that was going to become normal for them? She hoped not. She didn't need this. Her parents were splitting and now her friends were having issues. If it wasn't one thing it was the other, which didn't really work for her.

She stopped tapping her pencil when she felt her phone vibrate in her pocket and she looked to see a text from Ulrich.

_To: Yumi_

_ From: Ulrich_

_ I'm sorry for how I acted the other day. I really don't remember about the stuff with when Xana had me under its control. Meet me in the Factory. There's something that I have to tell you._

Yumi thought over his request and decided to go. She needed to see him and get some things straightened out as well.

"Ulrich, what was up with this text? You know I was in class," she said as she approached him. "And the disappearing act yesterday. Everyone was worried about you."

"Sorry, I just had to get away, Yumes," he whispered, turning toward her with his head down. "I didn't think you'd come."

"I came because I want to get some things straightened out. Just because I don't agree that Xana's completely gone from you doesn't mean that you can prove to me that it is gone. It's just going to take awhile. You understand, right?" she asked, getting closer and putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Yeah, but Yumi…. You were right. It's not completely gone," he said, looking up at her and grabbing her arm, twisting it around and covering her mouth so no one would hear her shocked scream.

Ulrich held her tightly so even the slightest movement was met with something blocking her from being able to move any further. "Quit resisting and you'll see where this goes."

She wasn't going to listen to a word he said. She continued trying to break free, even if it was to not avail.

Eventually they ended up in a room of the Factory that Yumi had never seen before. She was tied to a chair that was bolted to the floor and then gagged.

"Now, I'm going to talk and you're going to listen. If you don't, then you'll get electricity sent through your body. Not enough to kill you, definitely not, but enough to hurt excruciatingly. So be a good girl and be quiet."

Yumi quickly thought through her options. There really weren't many and maybe there was a chance that he'd let her go, so she decided to sit quietly.

"Your samurai has submitted to me. He realizes that your computer genius, Jeremie, is a bad person. None of you see it, because he doesn't want you to see. He's the one you should be fighting, not me. He plans to kill you all. He wants you all to be his army to take over the world with. If you don't agree with him, you get cut out of the group and if you don't come crawling back you're killed. That's how it works. Isn't it sad? You're all young. You shouldn't have to be killed, although if it's necessary to kill you then I must. What do you say?" Ulrich asked, his voice crackling with that hint of xanafication.

Yumi began to scream at him through the gag. Xana was the monster, not Jeremie. There was no way that Jeremie would do something like that. Ever.

"What was that? I'm assuming you're screaming about how I'm wrong and I'm sad to say that since you continue to stick up for that idiot that you have to be exterminated. Sorry for the cold, hard truth. I'm also sorry to say that there will be no evidence that my warrior killed you," he said, coming over and grabbing Yumi's phone from her pocket and sent an electric current through it before smashing it in his hand. "Now there's no proof he called you here today."

Yumi began trying to break her restraints. There was one across her lap that he'd placed so there was no way to stand up without that one being loosened and another one holding her arms together. The second ran all the way from her elbows and to her hands.

Ulrich picked her up with ease and left the room a different way than where they came in from.

Yumi continued to cry out and struggle against him, but she knew that there was no use to doing so. He was going to do whatever he wanted with her, no matter how much she kicked and screamed. It changed nothing.

It wasn't until they got to the Factory opening that she was finally unbound most of the way and allowed to speak.

"Any last words before I detail to you how you're going to die?" he asked, a grin spreading across his features.

"Just that I know that Ulrich is stronger than you and, even if I have to die, that I know he'll eventually break free from you. And Ulrich, if you can hear me right now, I love you…" she whispered the last part. It was true, but she'd always been afraid to say it out loud.

"Touching, now get on that rope," he ordered, moving so that the rope or falling to her death were her only options.

"And if I don't?" she asked, placing her hands on her hips and glaring at him.

"I can still do this whether you cooperate or not. It would just be much easier on the both of us if you did it willingly," he replied.

"Then let's fight it out, because I would much rather make this as difficult as possible for you then to have you win and me just give up," she replied, taking a defensive stance.

"You'll lose, I hope you know," he replied, coming after her, forearm meeting forearm when he swung at her.

"I hope you know that I'm not going to go down without one hell of a fight."

Ulrich chuckled and then continued to come after her. She was able to block the majority of his hits, but the ones she didn't were the ones that hurt the worst and were in the most painful places. She could the breath being knocked out of her with each hit that he landed in its intended area and her breath became shorter and shorter.

No matter what she did he came after her. His energy seemed boundless. Of course, that energy was probably coming from Xana some way. There was no way he'd be able to do all of this without an activated tower, but clearly he was. She just needed to find out how it was happening before he sent her over the edge to her death.

He laughed. "I see you're beginning to get weak. Tell you what, we'll stop this stupid game and you can just climb up on the rope and I'll tell you the rest of my plan. How about it?"

She shook her head. "Never." She wasn't going to give in to his whims and she certainly wasn't going to go along with his plans. If he wanted her on that rope then he'd better be ready to hog tie her to it. She wouldn't give up. "Ulrich, come on. I know you don't want to be doing this to me. You don't want to be doing this any of us. Don't you realize what you'll be doing if you kill me? What you're doing right now to everyone? All you're going to do is hurt everyone in the end, even yourself. Please Ulrich, come back."

"After all your struggling when I bound you you're still able to get up and fight me. That's impressive and commendable, but you should understand that this is the end of the line for you. Eventually you're going to tire and then I'll continue on with my plan of killing you. Even if I _**do**_ have to hog tie you to that rope. I am having fun with things going this way, though," he smiled at her.

It was all that he needed, but it happened. She faltered. She hesitated when she shouldn't have and now she knew that it would cost her her life.

All she could do was hang on to the rope after she was grabbed and brought onto it and then watch in horror as Ulrich climbed higher and was able to break the rope, sending her falling to her death.

She screamed.

_**A/N: Yeah, it's morbid, but don't worry. There will be some comic relief parts and nice parts. =3 Not much else to say. =3**_

_** [EDIT]: Alright, I edited this chapter and I'll tell you why. I asked a friend of mine to read through the chapters and tell me what he thought was wrong and the ending of this chapter was one of them. So I changed it, because I agreed that it was bad. It was something that was bothering me. I knew that I'd messed something up and was re-reading them when I asked him to read through them. So yeah. =3 Let me know whatcha think of the new version. =3**_

_** Read and review (please review. =3)**_

_**~MoonlitxAngel**_


	11. Jeremie: Part 1

_**Jeremie: Part 1**_

_**A/N: Little note really quick up here. The stuff that was happening with Odd, Jeremie, and William happened at the same time as the things with Ulrich. Meaning that Odd had just boarded the elevator as Ulrich started to rip the rope.**_

_** To the story!**_

Jeremie heard the scream before he even knew what was happening. It had been Yumi's and that's all he needed to know before he threw himself from the chair and made his way up the elevator, making it in before Odd had even had the doors shut with William following close behind.

When they reached the top and the doors opened they found Yumi lying on the ground dead.

All three walked up toward her and Jeremie checked her pulse before shaking his head.

"She's… dead…?" Odd asked, the shock of the situation clear on his face.

"Damn it!" Jeremie shouted, punching the ground with his fist, not caring when his knuckles started to bleed.

"What's been going on since I've been gone…?" William whispered, not really looking for an answer from either of the blonds with him, but still wondering.

"We should have listened to her and now he's killed her," Jeremie said, standing up and looking around.

"Jeremie, you don't know for sure that it was him. None of us do. For all we know it was just some random accident. I mean, look at the rope. It's broken. It's not cut, it's broken. Maybe it just finally loosened and broke after all the time of being used," Odd interjected, not wanting to believe Ulrich was behind it.

"Shut up, Odd. Just shut up. If he really is with Xana now, then you're just aiding him," Jeremie said, heading back for the elevator.

"Where are you going?!" Odd yelled after him, chasing Jeremie to the elevator and both going down to the supercomputer room.

William stayed there, looking at Yumi with complete and utter disbelief. How could this have happened? What had been going on since he'd been possessed? He tensed when her heard footsteps and clapping behind him, turning around to have his eyes meet with Ulrich's.

"Odd, shut up before I do something to you," Jeremie said through gritted teeth while working on the computer.

"That's funny. You can't hurt me, Jer. You know that and I know that. Quit automatically going to Ulrich being possessed still. We don't have enough evidence. The only thing you got from looking at the computer was that Xana blocked out the cameras. Which, yeah, should have ended up with an activated tower, but still? You don't know that it's Ulrich."

"Odd, just shut up for a minute, would you?!" Jeremie yelled at the top of his lungs.

"You're obsessed, you know that?" Odd asked before texting Aelita and giving her a brief summary of what happened and telling her to get there fast.

"William, what happened? What're you doing back?" Ulrich asked him, coming up to stand closer. "Is… Is she dead…?"

"I guess that Xana decided to let me go, but I don't remember anything from when we were all on Lyoko together on. I didn't even know that I'd been possessed until Odd and Jeremie said something," he replied, looking toward Ulrich. "And yeah…. She fell off the rope apparently." William was acting apathetic to the whole situation, but the truth was that he was crying on the inside. He wasn't going to cry in front of anyone else. That's a weakness he wasn't willing to share.

"W-William…? I think I did this to her…." Ulrich whispered looking down at the ground.

"What do you mean?" William asked, looking toward Ulrich and seeing the pain splayed across his face.

"I did it…. I-I-I…" he whispered, trying to get something out of his mouth and failing.

"Ulrich, c'mon, I know you hate me, but you can still tell me what's going," William said, placing a hand on the younger boy's shoulder.

"N-no…." Ulrich whispered, placing his hands over his ears and screaming. "Stay away from me! Get away!" he shouted, twisting down to the ground and rocking back and forth. "LEAVE ME ALONE! SHUT UP! SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!"

William backed away from the brunet and headed for the elevator, but it was just his luck that it didn't work.

A static-y laugh came from Ulrich as he looked up at William with a glare and then picked Yumi across the room with another laugh.

William went over and held her close. Ulrich just laughed.

"Is this what you've been planning all along?! Is this how you're going to play?! What's the point in killing them?!" William yelled, glaring at Ulrich.

"War is war, boy. People die for the ones they love in war. She loved my warrior, but he's working with me…. She chose to die and give him a chance to be freed rather than to save herself. Do you not understand that? Can you not comprehend that she would sacrifice herself for him? Whether it was all in vain didn't matter to her. I now understand humanly compassion and love, though I'll never feel it for myself," Xana spoke, using Ulrich's mouth to communicate.

"Xana, you're a monster that should have never been created. One way or another I'm going to bring you down and avenge our friends. I'll save him, too…."

Xana laughed and said, "You think that the three of you can take me and my warrior down?"

"We've done it before and we'll do it again. I won't let another one of them die."

The virus laughed again, nearly falling over. "That's a good one, boy. You'll never defeat me, not now. Do you even realize what you're up against?"

"I sure do and I'll figure something out."

Xana laughed even more. "Do you realize fully what you're getting into? Considering your first visit to Lyoko and how that turned out, you are a minimal threat to me. You ended up under my power and couldn't break free, proving how weak your resolve is. You'll have to get stronger pretty quickly if you even hope to defeat me."

_**A/N: Sorry about not posting. ^^" I was having some friend issues that made my inspiration plummet, but I promise a chapter out tomorrow and I'll try to post more over the weekend. =3**_

_**~MoonlitxAngel**_


	12. Jeremie: Part 2

_**Jeremie: Part 2**_

"Jer, you do realize that if we don't call the police or something and tell them about Yumi that we could get in huge trouble if they find out that we didn't call, right?" Odd asked as Jeremie typed furiously on the computer in front of him.

"Odd, why don't you go back up to entrance and call them? I'll talk to Jeremie. Just call when you get done calling them, so that we know when to shut off the elevator, alright?" Aelita asked, looking from Odd to Jeremie and back.

Odd sighed and went towards the elevator, placing a hand on her shoulder. "You don't have to hold it in, Princess. We don't need you going into a state like Jeremie. I know you're upset. _**I **_have to act like this, because I have to keep the two of you sane. So, don't hold it in."

Aelita watched as he walked off, the unshed tears stinging at the corners of her eyes, but as soon as she turned toward Jeremie again she brushed them away and placed her hand gently on his shoulder. "Jeremie, you didn't fail anyone. Xana's just gotten stronger and smarter, it seems."

"She's dead, Aelita. If I had been more vigilant with things and not let Ulrich's strange behavior slide like I did then maybe she would still be here. This isn't fair. She didn't have to die…." Jeremie said, his voice getting to more and more of a whisper as he spoke.

"Look at me, Jeremie. This isn't your fault. None of us saw this coming. If it's one person's fault then it's all of our faults. There is no way that I'm going to allow you to take all the blame if you insist on placing blame. None of us gave a second thought to Ulrich's strange behavior and we don't know for sure that it was him anyway. When I got here he wasn't even here and I doubt you saw him either. Don't beat yourself up, you have no reason to."

"Aelita, through everything Yumi's seemed like an older sister to me…. Think about it…. If I'd never found Lyoko-"

"Then you would have never met me or even became friends with Ulrich, Odd, and Yumi. You and I both know that the best thing for both of us is that you found the supercomputer and were able to do the materialization process. If you hadn't then things would have been pretty bad for you anyways. Don't focus on all the bad that's come out of this. Yumi was a strong person and I doubt that she died without giving a fight. Plus, you know that she would have done anything for us. Did you ever think that maybe it was her choice to be killed so that she could save us? Or that she decided to be killed, risking her own life, so we had a chance to do something?"

Odd stood away from Yumi and William feeling helpless. The older boy was racked with sobs, crying out for Yumi. He hadn't even been able to bring himself to call the police yet.

"I'm so sorry I wasn't here sooner, Yumi…." William whispered, trying to gather himself back together.

It didn't take long for Odd to decide to approach the ebony haired teen and place a shaky hand on his shoulder. "William?"

The older teen turned to him, wiping the tears from his eyes quickly and feigning a smile; clearly thinking that Odd wasn't there the whole time.

"Aelita came by and asked me to call the police to let them know what's up. Do you want to call instead?" Odd asked, removing his hand from the other boy.

"Yeah, I can do it. Then you, Aelita, and Jeremie should head back to the school. They're going to go crazy with all of you not being there," he told him as he pulled out his phone.

"One of the Einsteins has to be here to lock the elevator so that if the police try it they can't get down to the computer lab. So only two of us can go back and it'll be Aelita and me if anyone does go back," Odd told him moving away and calling Aelita to update her on what was going on while William called the police.

Ulrich stared up at the ceiling of the room he shared with Odd Della Robbia.

**That was a job well done. Our next target is the blond genius. He needs to be eliminated before he figures anything else out and brainwashes you again. Understood?**

_Understood, sir. Should I keep a watch on them first and act as if things are normal between us or just ignore them?_

**Keep acting as if things are normal, because until Jeremie is eliminated you acting abnormally to them would arouse suspicion.**

_I don't remember being friends with them, but you say we were and they act like it. Why is that?_

**I repressed some of the more… useless memories of yours that you no longer need. You do remember that you willingly agreed to help me, right?**

_That's not something easily forgotten._

Someone knocked loudly on his door and he opened it to be met with Jim's face. "Why aren't you with the rest of them? Where are the rest of them?"

"My friends? I don't know. They all ditched me to do something else. Which they've been doing a lot lately. Weird, huh? Anyway, classes are over so you have no reason to be bugging me. I was sick earlier today so I stayed in here. You can ask Odd. He'll tell you. Anyway, I have make-up work to do, so if you don't mind?" Ulrich asked, before going to shut the door.

Jim just stood there dumbfounded.

Ulrich laid back down on his bed, going back to staring at the ceiling. He felt the presence of his master leave him.

_Is what I'm doing right? As far as I know they never did anything to me to deserve to be killed. Why do I have to kill them, then?_

_**A/N: So Ulrich's not fully under Xana's control, but you'll see as this moves forward. =3**_

_** Read and review (please review. =( )!**_

_**~MoonlitxAngel**_


	13. Jeremie: Part 3

_**Jeremie: Part 3**_

Jeremie lay in his bed, staring at the blank computer screen. There was no way to alter the one program he so desperately needed to. No way to make the return to the past function bring back someone who was dead. There was no way to bring her back….

_Why did this have to happen? Why couldn't we have protected her? _Jeremie asked himself, glaring at the ceiling. _This is all Ulrich's fault. He let himself be possessed by Xana and now he's gone and killed Yumi. There's no way I'm going to be able to get Xana out of him again…. _

… _Maybe there's another way to get rid of him…._

Lights out had been a few hours ago and Ulrich still lay looking at Odd sleep. Odd had told him that Yumi was killed and he'd cried most of the rest of the evening, skipping dinner. He had a huge blank spot in his memory again, he didn't remember most of the day.

Odd had tried to talk to him earlier that evening, but he'd just ignored him and continued to mope, telling Odd that he just needed to be left alone.

The blond had eventually given up and gone to attempt to do his homework, but had trouble concentrating so he left to go ask Aelita for help and ended up gone for a longer time than it should have taken to get done with the homework.

He rolled over on the bed and closed his eyes, trying to will himself to fall asleep again. It was then that door quietly opened and someone stepped in before shutting it again.

Ulrich feigned asleep so as to catch the person in whatever act they were trying to commit, so it was a totally surprise when his vision went black.

When he came to it was morning again. "I guess I just fell asleep…."

"What're you talking about, Ulrich?" Odd asked as he pulled a shirt over himself.

"Last night I was lying awake, just staring at the ceiling and I heard somebody open the door and then I don't remember anything from there. I think that I just passed out, but I want to know who was in here last night…."

"For all we know it was Aelita coming to see if either of us was still up, because she was upset. Jeremie's not really good with that sort of thing, so she tends to go to Yumi when she's upset, but since Yumi's gone…."

Ulrich clenched his fists and held back tears. What had happened to Yumi? Why had she died? "Please Odd, don't mention what happened…. I can't afford to be holed up in here all weekend…. I need to get Jeremie to trust me, because I know he still doesn't."

"It's not gonna be easy, good buddy. He's got it stuck in his head that you're the one that killed Yumi and that he's this monumental failure for not stopping you," Odd said, resting his arm across Ulrich's shoulders.

A quick flash of pain ran through his head as he fell to the ground, pushing the palms of his hands against his temples.

_Jeremie. Walking into their dorm. A knife held high above._

More pain raced through his skull.

_Ulrich yelling for help. Odd not responding. Jeremie plunging the knife downwards toward Ulrich's heart._

He screamed. He felt like his head was going to split open at any second. He saw Odd making wild gestures, notifying Ulrich that he couldn't hear anything as a fresh wave of pain crashed through.

_Him stopping Jeremie. Jeremie crying out in pain, the knife dropping to the floor. Jeremie swearing he'd kill him, calling him Xana, someday soon. Something about avenging Yumi. Darkness._

Just like that, as soon as the flashes of thought ceased, the pain in his head decreased and left an incessant whistle noise in his ear.

"Ulrich, are you okay? C'mon, answer. … I'm going to go get the nurse," Odd said before Ulrich grabbed his arm.

"It's okay…. Just this weird headache came out of nowhere and then went away. I'm fine, promise," he replied, seeing the skeptic look on Odd's face.

"I still think that you should mention something to the nurse. Let's go to the infirmary. It'll make me feel better. Did anything else happen when your head started hurting?"

"I saw flashes of something, but it didn't make sense…. Jeremie wouldn't try to kill me, would he?" Ulrich asked, looking Odd in the eyes.

"Part of me wants to say no, but the way he was blaming you yesterday for Yumi's death and the way he was acting kind of screams to me that he might…. Why? Is that what you saw?"

He nodded. "He had a knife and was about to kill me, but I stopped him…."

"I'll talk to him, okay? If you're scared, there's no need to be…. We can sit somewhere else at breakfast if you want, too," Odd said, helping Ulrich up.

He nodded again and the two headed out.

"How could you?!" Aelita screeched, tears racing down her cheeks as Jeremie sat in his chair looking at his hands. "How could you, Jeremie?! We're not sure if he's guilty or not and you just tried to _**kill**_ him! When did that ever cross your mind as a _**good **_idea?!"

"I don't know…. I wasn't thinking straight…. I'm so-" Jeremie started, getting cut off for the second time.

"Don't you dare try and tell me you're sorry! You need to be telling that to Ulrich! You probably creeped him out with that little stunt and if Xana still does have some sort of pull on him then you really need to apologize so that he doesn't gather more ground! Do you want that? Do you want to drive Ulrich away from us when we need him?!"

He shook his head in shame and continued to scrutinize his hands. Things just weren't going right for him at all lately and he had a feeling that they were just going to get worse as all this continued….

_**A/N: Questions, comments, suggestions, and concerns are all welcome. =3 I'd love to hear what you guys have to say. ^-^ Sorry for not updating in awhile. Writer's block, family stuff, and no motivation don't bode well for trying to write. If you guys wanna PM me with suggestions for a story (for Code Lyoko) that I can do next or if you wanna see a re-make of a story that I've done before this one please go ahead. =3 Or even put it in a review. Reviews keep me going. ^^**_

_** Any and all anonymous reviewers (Ulrich fan, Anon, **__**jonathan padilla, hgirl, and any that I'm missing): You guys are awesome. ^-^ I'm happy that you guys took the time to review and you guys are part of the reason I'm pushing myself to try and write on this story again, so please don't stop reviewing. =3 Reviews are what keep me going. =3**_

_** Read and review!**_

_**~MoonlitxAngel**_


	14. Jeremie: Part 4

_**Jeremie: Part 4**_

"Jeremie, just go apologize, okay? That's all I'm asking. You don't have to say another word to him if you don't want to, but you need to apologize," Aelita urged as the two watched Ulrich and Odd get breakfast and then head for a different table. "We don't need the group splintered like this…."

Jeremie sighed and agreed before going over to where the two sat down. "Listen, I'm sorry…. Yumi's death really hit me hard and I apologize for trying to attack you, Ulrich. I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions…."

Ulrich looked down, pushing his food around the tray. "We already lost Yumi, Jer…. If I hadn't stopped you, you would have killed me last night," he looked up at Jeremie. "Would you have been able to live with yourself if you'd killed me? Would you be able to get up and live each day knowing that you took my life? You nearly killed me on a _**hunch**_. Something that you thought to be true. What would you have done if you'd killed me and the police came after you? Considering that I haven't done anything wrong to my knowledge and I've always been there for you through everything, there's no way they'd think it was self-defense. She was my friend, too, Jeremie. Having you accuse me of killing her just makes her death a thousand times worse."

"It seems like you don't accept my apology. I already said I was sorry and that I'm just upset, but you can't accept that. Turn it around and put yourself in my shoes for a minute, Ulrich," Jeremie snapped, before turning away.

Ulrich shot up from the table before stopping and grabbing his tray and throwing the contents away and storming from the cafeteria.

Odd just sat alone and ate his food. Things were going badly for their group and it seemed that things weren't going to go right ever again. Yumi had just died and instead of grieving together, Ulrich and Jeremie were arguing. They all needed each other and fighting and hurting each other was going to do nothing, but bring more suffering.

Ulrich locked himself in his and Odd's dorm and slid down the length of the door, hugging his knees and resting his forehead on them. Remembering what Jeremie had done the night before, he started to just let the tears roll down his cheeks. "Why me…?"

Looking at the ceiling, William sat alone in the Factory. He was trying to think back on the time that he had spent under Xana's control, but couldn't get the memories to show up. It was pretty clear to him that Xana had only released him, because it had Ulrich now. He wanted to be able to go back to the school, because then he'd be able to watch Ulrich. He would be able to keep a watch over all of them and warn Jeremie and the others. He just didn't know exactly how he was going to do it yet. Things were going to be even more difficult for everyone since Yumi's death had only been a short time ago.

William knew, though, that he had to do something before Xana could use Ulrich to do its bidding again. If that happened, he wasn't sure which one of them wouldn't make it out alive this time.

Ulrich wandered into the forest and sat underneath the canopy the trees created. He wasn't sure what to do or where to go next. Life was becoming one complication after another. There were the blank spots in his memory, and now to add on top of that, Yumi was dead and Jeremie had tried to kill him.

_**There's a solution to all your problems….**_

__Then of course there was the voice in his head, telling him things that he'd apparently done or showing him memories that were his but weren't.

_**Your friends don't care about you anymore, and you and I both know it…. Give me complete control and I'll take care of your problems, Ulrich….**_

__It was a tempting offer, and he'd contemplated giving in many times before. Crazy or not, the voice had a point. There was an escape for him, and he could take it at any time. Maybe things would be better that way. Maybe he'd be able to make his dad proud of him and his friends could be happier.

_**They would be able to be much happier, Ulrich….**_

__He knew it was probably a bad idea, but maybe surrendering himself to the voice would be better for everyone….

Odd was worried. He hadn't seen Ulrich at all since that morning and now Jeremie was missing as well. There were two things that this could mean, and one he preferred not to think about.

"Odd, have you seen Jeremie? He disappeared earlier and I haven't been able to find him," Aelita came up and asked him as he was headed outside.

"I haven't seen him or Ulrich since they 'talked' this morning," Odd replied, stopping.

"I'm worried that something happened to one or both of them…. We've already lost Yumi, and I don't think that our group can handle losing anyone else…."

Both teens jumped when their phones began buzzing in their pockets, and they saw a messaged from Jeremie telling them of a Xana attack.

"Let's hope that Ulrich got the message, too. We're gonna need all the help we can get," Odd stated as the two took off.

It didn't take long for them to get to the factory and see that Ulrich was there as well, albeit looking a bit different.

"Thank goodness you both are alright. We've been worried. What's the attack?" Aelita asked, moving to Jeremie's side and seeing that William was on Lyoko.

"Doesn't seem like Xana's done anything yet, but Ulrich hasn't spoken or moved from where he's at since he's gotten here. I need you two to get him in scanners. I need to run some tests. William's fighting off monsters, I felt it was safe for him to go back, and I need you two to go help him once you've gotten Ulrich in a scanner," Jeremie told them, not removing his eyes from the computer screen.

Both nodded and stood on opposite sides of Ulrich, pulling him toward the scanners.

(*)(*) Lyoko – Mountains (*)(*)

"Alright, the tower isn't too far from your position. You should be able to see it from where you are, but be careful, because Xana's sent quite an army. I'm working on Ulrich as we speak, so I'll let you know what I find. Also, be careful you three. William's not as experienced as Yumi, so watch his back. You'll need the help," Jeremie told them as they moved forward.

"Let the warriors handle this, Jer, okay? It's not gonna be too terrible. Sure, we're down by one, but we can handle it," Odd stated, running ahead of the other two.

"Odd!" Aelita called as a monster began materializing right on top of Odd.

_**A/N: Not the best, but not the worst either. =3 Yumi's part was short, but I'm trying to make Jeremie's a bit longer, so that I'll have more chapters. xD Aelita's will probably be short, as will Odd's because you can only play a game of cat and mouse for so long. XD Though, in Odd's part there will be hints to who the mysterious stranger in the prologue was. =3**_

_** Sorry for the long wait you guys. D= Huge bought of writer's block right now. Dx**_

_** Read and review! ^-^ (please!)**_

_**~MoonlitxAngel**_


	15. Jeremie: Part 5

_**Jeremie: Part 5**_

Odd looked up, and he was able to roll out of the way a mere second before the monster would have landed on him.

"Odd, were you listening to Jeremie at all?" Aelita asked as the three began to fight the new foe.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I was," Odd told her with a hint of annoyance.  
"Guys, this is no time for arguing. The scan found a part on Ulrich that is feeding Xana into him. It's not like possession. It's something entirely different, and I have a feeling that if we don't stop this we're going to lose Ulrich as well," Jeremie told them quickly.

"We're on it, Einstein," William said, helping the two defeat the monster and then head for the tower again.

"Since that first time, I think that Ulrich's been being influenced by Xana in one way or another. Whatever's going on, it's at seventy-five percent already, so you need to hurry to the tower and deactivate it."

"Got it, Jer," Odd said.

They were racing against the clock as they began running toward the tower, Odd in front. It didn't take long to get there, but they were welcomed by a small army.

"There are six hornets, two krabs, and two megatanks. Both megatanks, three hornets, and a crab are hidden behind the tower. I'd send you the vehicles, but I'm using the computer to slow down the process of what's going on with Ulrich and it doesn't have the power to do all of it," Jeremie told them.

"So we'll have to handle this on our own," Odd stated with a shrug. "I think we can do it."

"A little over optimistic, Odd," Aelita said gently as the fighting began.

To attempt to save time, Aelita and Odd attempted to shoot down all the hornets while William took care of the krabs.

"Guys, don't worry about the smaller ones. They won't be too much of a hassle to run through to get to the tower. Take care of anything that you think is going to hinder you getting to the tower. We don't have a lot of time," Jeremie's voice rang out above them, and they fought with renewed vigor. "Oh, and just so you know, it's at eighty-five percent. It's moving quickly, and you could guys should be too."

"We got it, Jer," Odd stated as he went for the megatanks.

Ulrich couldn't tell where he was, just that he was in an extreme amount of pain. The pain continued to grow, feeling like an oppressive weight rather than an actual wound. He could feel something crushing him, pushing him further and further into himself. He was being separated from his consciousness so that something else could take over. This wasn't what he'd wanted!

_**Too bad, child. You forfeited all control over your body, and now I have come to claim it. Your friends are performing poorly on Lyoko, so you should be mine to control soon. I may allow you to say good-bye and beg for forgiveness, but that will be all.**_

"Just let me go!" he shouted into the black expanse he was surrounded by.

_**You made the decision to allow me possession of your body for the time being, and that is exactly what I intend to do.**_

"That isn't what I thought you meant! I don't want this!"

_**It's too late….**_

Ulrich knew, without a doubt, that he'd been tricked. He'd been bamboozled into believing that his friends were against him, and that belief was going to be his downfall. He wished that he had a chance to tell his friends, but there was no way he was getting that. Xana, who he figured was the voice he'd been hearing, wasn't going to allow him that. There was no way. Xana wasn't that nice. The virus wanted them all gone, and it would do whatever it had to to reach that goal.

"Jer, how close are we to losing Ulrich?" Odd asked as he shot as many arrows as he could at the monsters, with William swinging his sword and causing the arrows to go in a different direction when they hit his sword. "William, watch what you're doing!"

"Well, it's at ninety percent now, so you've probably got about five minutes before he's gone," Jeremie answered back, with a disheartened sigh.

"Great, this is just great. We're going to lose Ulrich," Odd sighed, attempting and failing to hit another monster.

"Odd, just keep hoping that things go well and we don't lose him," Aelita whispered, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"It's an extremely slim chance that you guys will be able to save him at this point…." Jeremie muttered.

"Don't give up you guys," Aelita stated as she took flight. "As soon as we start talking like that, the more likely it is to happen."

"Yeah, well I'm betting Einstein is right. We're going to lose him, and we're going to end up having to fight him. Then where do you think we'll end up? I'm guessing dead. What's your guess?"

"Odd, just shut up. I'm trying to think. One of us needs to be focused on saving us all, you know," Aelita stated, looking at the ground and then at her surroundings. The monsters had stopped attacking them, probably assuming that they were giving up. It didn't take long for her to formulate a plan. "Odd, go to the left and try to distract those monsters. William, go with him and just try to keep their attention focused on the two of you. I'm going to try something…."

The two boys nodded and did as they were instructed.

Aelita watched and waited, waiting for the right moment before taking off for the tower.

"Whoa! The timer just skipped ahead! You've got seconds to deactivate that tower, Aelita!" Jeremie shouted out in surprise.

Aelita sprinted faster, entering the tower, hoping it wasn't too late.

She hit the center of the bottom platform and rose to the top, bringing up the panel that would deactivate the tower and save her friend.

0:05…

She placed her hand on the panel.

0:04…

Her name was verified.

0:03…

Code showed up.

0:02…

Lyoko entered…

0:01

Code verified…

Aelita let out a sigh of relief as did Jeremie.

"I think we did it, Aelita, but I want you guys back here fast just in case," Jeremie told her.

_**A/N: Sucky place to end, I know. D= I've been having major writer's block for all my CL stories, and I have no idea why. It sucks. If you don't like this story, let me know you guys. I need some motivation to keep writing this. I love writing, but I feel like no one reads this...**_

_** Read and review!**_

_**~MoonlitxAngel**_


	16. Jeremie: Part 6

_**Jeremie: Part 6**_

Jeremie turned around in the computer chair and wiped his brow. His body shook as the adrenaline loosened its hold on him, returning him to normal. He'd been feeling tense and worried all through the mission to save Ulrich. He pushed himself from the chair and waited for his friends to make it up to the computer lab. He wasn't sure if it all had worked out correctly. Aelita had deactivated the tower the exact moment that the countdown timer had hit zero. It was highly likely that Ulrich was gone to them.

It was then that he heard the elevator moving up and he looked around to see it open and reveal Ulrich's grinning countenance.

"You've lost, Einstein," he said, the small crackle of Xana present in his voice.

The three exited the scanners and instantly knew that something was wrong.

"Where's Ulrich…?" Odd asked hesitantly, voicing the question everyone was thinking.

"Maybe he's just upstairs with Jeremie, and they're both waiting for us," Aelita quipped, knowing in the back of her mind it wasn't true. They'd lost their best friend forever.

The three headed up to the computer lab and were met with what they expected but hoped wasn't true.

Ulrich had murdered Jeremie.

Aelita turned away, tears stinging her eyes. She had to cover her mouth to help keep the bile from burning its way up her throat. They'd lost not only Ulrich and Yumi, but now Jeremie was dead. It was too much for the pinkette to take and she tore her way from the room and out of the Factory.

"We're screwed, Odd. It's inevitable that the three of us are going to die," William said, stepping toward Jeremie and giving him a once over.

"Not exactly, William. I have a plan, but I'm going to need you and Aelita's help with it. We can save ourselves, I know it…" Odd whispered, heading out of the Factory, William following closely after.

_Alright, so Aelita's out with helping, but maybe I can find someone else that's good with computers. Herve would be the next choice, but he might ask too many questions…. Think Odd!_ The blonde thought to himself, sitting on his bed and glaring at his roommate. Aelita was basically solely focused on bringing Xana down. Her entire instinct of self-preservation was gone. Killing Xana was all she was focused on. William was the only other person that could help him, but even that was iffy. He needed someone that he could fully trust. He needed Ulrich back, but that wasn't going to happen. There was no way that Xana was going to let the brunet go, and Odd was just going to have to deal with what he had on hand at the moment.

He quietly slipped from the room, and he made his way to Herve's room and knocked.

"State your business," came his muffled reply through the wooden door.  
"Uh, I need your help with something. It's important, Herve. I know I haven't been nice to you in the past, but this is a life-or-death situation," Odd answered, his voice wavering slightly.

The pimply-faced, onyx haired boy came to the door and opened it with a look of utter shock. "You want my help with something? Why not ask Jeremie?"

Odd quickly answered like he didn't know of Jeremie's death yet. "I can't find him. I just need this one thing, Herve. I'll never bother you ever again if you can at least attempt to help me with this.

Aelita typed furiously at her computer, deleting or editing code until she knew it would work. This had to work. Her and Odd were the only ones left, and they needed to fight their hardest to survive.

Pain welled up in her heart, and she quelled it. She couldn't afford to feel anything but determination. She couldn't allow herself to be upset. She needed to get this done as soon as possible before Ulrich had a chance to kill her. She finally understood how Jeremie felt when he was trying to save her life, and she silently thanked him. She allowed a single tear fall from her eye, and then she started typing with renewed determination.

Ulrich was a good person. He never wanted to hurt any of them, and she needed him right now. He was close to Yumi, and he needed them as well. He probably wasn't even aware of the things going on right now. She hated what he was forced to become, but she didn't hate him.

He blinked slowly and sat up. He couldn't tell where he was. He didn't know exactly who he was anymore…. Memories flowed through his mind, and he didn't know if they were his or not. He was a thought that had been discarded he reasoned. Yes, that was the only thing he could be. A passing thought that had been discarded. He could see exactly what was going on outside of this head he was trapped in, and he could tell there was a school. They were walking through a school.

_"You are something unwanted, but you are needed here. Fight for your place back…" _he heard a calming, gentle voice say.

He looked around him and started running. He didn't know where he was going, but there was a definite destination.

"Thanks Herve. Let me know when you need to test it, okay? I need it soon," Odd said, waving the onyx haired genius and smiling as he exited his room.

Odd made his way down the hallway, and he went to Jeremie's room first. He opened the door with the key that Jeremie expertly hid, and he sat down at the computer. He knew he knows nothing about computers, but he's good at figuring things out and finding things that need found. To this thought, he quickly found a program that would completely eradicated Xana from Ulrich, but it wasn't complete yet. He burned the files to a DVD and attempted to call Aelita.

On the third try, she answered. "What do you want, Odd?"

"Listen, we need to find a way that we get Jer's computer when they find out that he's dead as well. They'll search it, and guess what they'll find. We'll be screwed. I've found a program on here that is for ridding Ulrich of Xana, and I burned the files to a DVD. Help me, and I'll give it to you," he answered, hanging up before she could protest.

Things were moving in the right direction, but he wondered how long he could keep it that way….

_**A/N: I'm just not really motivated to write this anymore, but I'm going to finish it. Reviews will help. If you don't like this story, tell me so.**_

_**~MoonlitxAngel**_


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